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Evans Dachoute was listening to Josh Krajcik’s “Let Me Hold You” trying to figure out what style of music to use when he covered the song with his 18-year-old son, also a musician. Then the call from detectives came, and he learned he wouldn’t ever play music with him again.

Rueben Dachoute was with friends from church Wednesday morning when he and another 18-year-old jumped from a dock on the St. Johns River at Reddie Point Preserve in Arlington. Both were swept from shore by a swift current. Rueben drowned and was recovered after nearly five hours of searching by police. A rescue boat pulled the other teen from the water alive.

Evans Dachoute has listened to the song almost endlessly since, barely sleeping Wednesday night, he said.

Thursday afternoon, family members gathered around a wooden table at the Dachoute home on the Westside and remembered Rueben, a Paxon School for Advanced Studies student, who loved Southern gospel music. Paxon Assistant Principal LaShanda Allen, who was visiting the family, sat on a nearby couch.

Rueben’s mother, Katia Dachoute, said she’s going to miss hearing Rueben sing in the shower and the way he always snapped his fingers.

“You never seen Rueben sad,” she said. “Never.”

Stephanie Elas, Rueben’s aunt, said he talked every day about college and his dream of becoming an astrophysicist. He had already sent out one college application.

Rueben played guitar at First United Pentecostal Church on the worship team. He played saxophone and drums in school. He wrote music and sang with his father at home.

“He looked deep into music,” Evans Dachoute said.

“Rueben was and is a star,” Katia Dachoute said.

Rueben was born to the Haitian immigrants in New York but grew up in Jacksonville after the family moved here in 2000.

His mother said Rueben’s favorite color was red. His aunt said he was stylish and when he dressed up would wear a red bowtie.

But music was his life, and he practiced constantly in a makeshift studio behind the dining room of the Dachoute home.

His father sat beside the keyboard staring at his son’s red guitar with “Let Me Hold You” playing from the speakers.

“I can’t blame anybody,” he said. “… They were just trying to have fun and picked the wrong time to jump into the water. If the tide was turning around, he would be OK.”